


Nothing's Real But Love

by Haunted_Obsidian



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angry Erik, Charles and Erik both being self-conscious, M/M, Past Abuse, Scars, Teary Charles, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-21
Updated: 2012-06-21
Packaged: 2017-11-08 05:23:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haunted_Obsidian/pseuds/Haunted_Obsidian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One night, Erik discovers that he's not the only one with scars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing's Real But Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on the X-MFC kink meme :
> 
> Fanon says that Erik has scars all over his body. Charles is accepting of this and sensitive, but Erik feels horribly ugly when compared to Charles, whose body is lovely and perfect.
> 
> One night, though, Erik wakes up and sees that Charles' body is covered with scars -- he's been projecting an illusion so that Erik won't discover the abuses he went through as a child, but he can't keep it up while he's asleep. Lots of talking and mutual emotional comfort when Charles wakes up, please!
> 
> http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/5215.html?thread=7118175#t7118175

Erik's eyes opened, the chill of the air forcing him awake. He sat up, the navy blue sheets sliding off his bare chest and pooling at his waist. It didn't take long to see the reason why the room was so cold; the window on the far side of the bedroom was cracked open. He smirked, remnants of the past evening coming to mind. He reluctantly slid off the bed and got up, made the quick trek across the floorboards to close the window and came back, burrowing under the covers once more. 

He quickly wrapped an arm around an unconscious Charles and pulled him closer, breathing in his scent, pale skin still warm from where he'd left it. Erik pulled the smaller man closer and tightened his grip, fingers ghosting over the flesh of Charles' stomach. Suddenly, Erik felt raised skin where there had been smooth skin just three hours before. He knew this because every inch of Charles' marvelous skin was smooth, not mottled with hideous scars and ugly marks like his own. 

With a furrowed brow, he traced the raised flesh that was located to the right of Charles' navel, stretching up and over towards his side. Unable to put a handle on his curiosity anymore, Erik pushed himself up with his free arm and pulled down the covers, just enough moonlight streaming in the window to highlight the jagged scar that marred at least six inches of Charles' right side. At the sight of this, Erik froze, mouth opening in a silent gasp of confusion. 

Gently, he rolled Charles onto his back, the telepath sleepily going along with it, too tired to resist. Erik's eyes widened in horror as he saw that the scar on Charles' side was not the only one marring (what Erik had thought to be) his perfect skin. 

His Charles (now that they had finally consummated the relationship)--perfect and sweet and oh, so genuinely nice and couldn't hurt a fly Charles'--body was covered in a constellation of scars. They littered his arms—burns marks in neat rows upon both forearms. They zigzagged across his chest—some small, white slivers, barely noticeable to the untrained eye, others large and pink and raised and painful looking— _God so painful looking_. And yet then there were the ones on his temples—small, round circles—and Erik knew because Erik was Erik and he had been through the same shit—leftover from electrodes that had been left on the skin for far too long. 

A tear trickled down his cheek, but he didn't bother to wipe it away. He wondered, if only for a moment, if he was dreaming. That perhaps, this was just some horrible nightmare, and he was just dreaming it all up because he was a monster, and monsters had sick, twisted minds that dreamt such awful things. But as he ran his calloused hand up and down the exposed skin, he knew that this was all real. This was really _his_ Charles, and someone had done this to him and he was going to find them and kill them and rip their heart out with his bare hands and then force it back down their throat so they could choke on it--

“Erik?” Charles' voice was soft and gentle and...sad.

Erik's gaze jerked from the telepath's scarred body to his eyes, and Erik wanted to be angry at the man for hiding this from him, and he could tell from the expression on Charles' face that he felt ashamed—though Erik wasn't sure if it was from lying to him all this time or because of the marks that covered his body like some horrid pattern that his abuser had left like a signature on his skin.

“Who did this to you?” Erik blurted out, accent thick, voice gravelly and furious. “Who did this to you, Charles? Just give me a name and--”

Erik was quieted by the two fingers Charles gently laid upon his lips, shushed by the soft touch, though the anger and fury was still there, clearly evident in his gunmetal-colored eyes. 

“I'm sorry you had to find out this way, my friend,” Charles said sincerely as he slowly sat up, blue eyes still piercingly beautiful in the semi-dark. Erik didn't miss the way Charles tried to pull the covers up over his chest but Erik reached a hand out and clenched the cotton material, shaking his head and muttering, “Don't.” Charles sighed and reluctantly obeyed, letting the sheets slide back down silently.

“I-I didn't exactly have the most normal of childhoods, I suppose,” Charles stated with a broken sounding, short-lived laugh, blue eyes looking everywhere but into Erik's. The older man gently cupped Charles' chin and raised his head up and finally, their eyes met once more. “I had the bad fortune of having my telepathy show itself when I was quite young, around seven or so. And having a father that was a scientist didn't help matters much. When he found out, he was curious. And as any scientist that is curious, he decided that experimentation was the best way to go about figuring out how I _ticked_ , so to speak. It didn't matter that test subject 30213 was his own son.” Charles' voice hitched on the last word, and Erik could see the tears that were forming in his eyes. The metal-bender laid a quiet hand of reassurance on the smaller man's arm, giving it a gentle squeeze, though there was still rage burning in his gut. 

Charles nodded and sniffed, laying a hand of his own over Erik's. “When he passed on, his partner decided to take over where he'd left off. He convinced my mother that he loved her, and they married, and with that marriage brought more experiments and the like. Though he was more of the hands-on type, as was his son, my step-brother. And I'm afraid as much as you want to kill them, Mr. Marko is quite dead, and his son, the last I checked, had disappeared off the face of the earth. I'm sorry for not telling you sooner, Erik. I just...I didn't want...” Charles frowned upon being unable to find the right words though Erik shook his head and leaned over, laying a trembling kiss upon the cherry-red lips. 

He wrapped his arms around the smaller man, pulling him close and laying a hand on the back of his head, skimming his fingers through and through the dark, wavy locks. “I'm sorry, Charles.”

“For what?” the smaller man murmured, head still buried in Erik's firm shoulder.

“For what I said before. About the hardship you faced--”

Charles sat up abruptly, eyes serious yet still shimmering as he spoke. “Please don't be sorry, Erik. You didn't know.” Charles took one of Erik's hands, holding it to his cheek. “You didn't know,” he repeated, voice as light as a feather.

Erik nodded, but still looked unconvinced. “You told me I wasn't alone. I didn't honestly realize until a few minutes ago just how right you were.” Erik's gaze drifted to the various markings that littered the landscape of Charles' body, tracing them and memorizing them with his eyes. “I thought-I honestly thought that you would think me to be a vile and disgusting creature with these—“ he said, off-handedly gesturing towards his own scars. 

Charles stared at him, pain for the other man etched across his pale visage.

“Even though I'd grown used to them, I still made sure to keep them covered at all times because every time I did look at them, all I saw was that fourteen-year old boy that was too weak to prevent them. And all along, you've been hiding the exact same thing.”

They sat there in silence for a few minutes, the moonlight casting their shadows against the wall. 

“I truly am sorry I didn't tell you,” Charles' voice cut through the quiet. He glanced down at himself, at the bare skin that was flawed and not the perfect projection that he'd been putting up for so long. His gaze slowly traveled to Erik and his bare-chested form, the scars there but not as noticeable on his tanned skin. “I just didn't want you to worry about me is all.”

Erik laughed dryly. “I'm going to worry about you regardless, Charles. After all, we are-we are together now, aren't we?” There was a ghost of a smile pulling at the corners of Erik's lips, though his face was still strained, mind racing about days that have been and that had passed. 

“Yes, I suppose we are,” the brunette agreed with a nod and tiny smile, slowly bringing himself next to Erik's side again. The older man lifted his arm up and pulled Charles close, letting the smaller man be enveloped by his warmth. Slowly, Charles raised an unsure finger to Erik's chest, and gently traced over a strip of skin that had scarred over long ago. From the looks of it, Charles presumed that the Nazi-hunter had probably sewn it up himself. “Does it ever hurt?” he murmured, stilling his hand. 

“It used to,” Erik replied. 

“But it doesn't anymore?” Charles inquired curiously, eyebrow raised.

“No. Not since I've been here,” the older man answered truthfully.

Charles blinked, and after a few minutes, he finally understood. The smile that had teased his lips earlier was back, though far brighter than it was before. “Goodnight, Erik.”

“Goodnight, Charles.”

It wasn't long before they both drifted back off to sleep, Charles wrapped protectively in Erik's arms, and a silent vow on Erik's lips that he would never let anyone hurt Charles again. 

Including himself.


End file.
